Softly Softly Catch Monkey

Well I'm back.

In my last blog post three months ago, I was at the end of my tether about being able to get back to any serious running.  Today I ran 41:40 for a 10k at the Brisbane Road Runners. A quite respectable time considering I did 20k yesterday and 108k for the week and on the back of 111k and 102k the previous weeks. So I guess you could say that is a turn around.

So what happened?  Good question. I did stop taking two of  my daily medications. One in particular I don't think was doing me any good at all.  Most of all I just abandoned any thoughts of  racing and went into base building mode. Just lots of easy runs and just slowily building up the distances.

I am really enjoying be part of the Running Buddies Group who I run with every Wednesday and Saturday mornings. . With them I have run my first classic Brisbane River Loop (34k), a Gateway Bridge Loop (35k) and even run over the Green Bridge on a training run.  I am still waiting for my first Mt Cootha loop.





In April, I made the trip down to Canberra for the Half Marathon. I managed 1:35:20 on a cold and rainy day and had an epic last 6k chasing down Tesso and pipped her just meters from the finish. But it was nice to catch up and socialize with people and especially with my music soul mate Johnny Dark.









 
Over Easter, I had a glorious six days of music at the Byron Bay Bluesfest. Too much over-exuberant dancing left me sore and sorry in a host of areas that you don't use running and by the end the relentless good times and camping out left me run down and I picked up a cold which kept me from running for ten days. But it was all worth it.

In May, I also participated for the first time in the Warwick Pentath-run. That was a great week-end spent with a great bunch of people. It seems very daunting on paper, 42.2k covered in five events over two days.  I didn't really know how my body would recover after such a short turn around between events but much to my suprise I came out of it not too shattered.

So my race results were:
Saturday
Half Marathon          1:36:54  (3rd M55-59)
4.6 k Cross Country   20:09 (3rd M55-59)
5k  Road Race           20:45  (1st M55-59)
Sunday
10k Hill Ascent 51:31 (1st M55-59)
1500m Dash       5:34  (2nd M55-59)
Total Time 3:14:57

It is now two weeks till the Gold Coast and I have entered the Half Marathon. With a few faster sessions over the next fortnight, it will be interesting to see what I can do. After that I will make a decision on whether I will run a marathon this year. The opions are either Bisbane in August or Sydney in September or wait till next year. Then there is Kurrawa in December where The Old Fogies will rule when Tesso and I take on all the junior upstarts in the 50k relay.

I feel I have turned the corner but I still don't want to get too far ahead of myself.


Softly soffry catch monkey.